Romney: 'I Believe The World Is Getting Warmer' And Humans Partly Responsible

Forget the individual mandate. Mitt Romney is now breaking with the Republican base on yet another issue. On Friday at a town hall in New Hampshire, Romney told the crowd he accepted the scientific conclusion that global warming is happening, and that man-made emissions are a factor.

"I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire.

"It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors."

At the same time, Romney added that alternative energies alone cannot solve the situation, and that the United States should not simply limit its own industrial activities to the economic benefit of other countries:

"I love solar and wind (power) but they don't drive cars. And we're not all going to drive Chevy Volts," he said referring to electric cars.

The United States can not go it alone in attempting to trim emissions levels and give a free pass to countries such as China and Brazil, Romney said. "It's not called American warming, it's called global warming," he said.

Openly discussing the phrase "global warming" in any positive sense probably won't do much to please the GOP base. By contrast, other candidates have strongly criticized climate change science and activism, or have distanced themselves from their own previous activism on the issue.

For example, Tim Pawlenty has openly declared that his previous position in favor of cap-and-trade was "stupid,". And Newt Gingrich, who once starred in an ad calling for action on climate change alongside then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), now pronounces: "Now, if you were a left-wing intellectual, climate change is the newest excuse to take control of lives, and you want a new bureaucracy to run our lives on behalf of the newest thing."